Myriad truths

** Spoilers for Persona 4 Golden **

My journey in Persona 4 Golden has finally reached its end, with tears and laughter included after killing the last boss – the very, very last boss from the true ending. In good jrpg fashion, the game hinted at a possible outcome while there were still many events waiting around the corner. I can tell that we were reaching for the end many gameplay hours ago. First when we thought the copycat murderer was the culprit, then when we were pretty much certain that Namatame was responsible, and yet there was another one pulling the strings, until finally, the ultimate almighty entity behind the fog enveloping mankind’s wishes revealed itself in a most inconspicuous form. I’ve seen enough examples of how immersive the storytelling coming from these developers can be, and they definitely delivered a good thriller in the Persona universe and still gave us enough reasons to smile despite the trying times and uncertainty looming over Inaba.

Since I’ve played Persona 3 Reload quite recently it was hard to avoid comparing both games. I don’t mean it in detail because comparing a remake full of features that pamper our brains to infinity would be silly. Persona 4 Golden is a product of its time in comparison, and much of those quality of life features, even the graphics, aren’t to be compared to a game released this year. But the foggy atmosphere is reminiscent of that green fog from P3 that I won’t forget so soon and the people’s minds, disconnected from each other and waiting – in the case of Persona 4 – wishing – for the end of days and the forgetfulness it entails. 

These big life questions are common elements between the games and the gods are thrown into the mix to give humanity a taste of their wishes, even the gods themselves as a creation of debilitated minds and hearts sowing lies, deceit and masks that cover their true selves. It’s as if they linger there in the pool of life, waiting to answer collective prayers without any effort at moralising the individuals. Their wishes are the god’s wishes and it rests upon us, the player, to enlighten their hearts, to treasure the precious life we have together and to show them that the truth can be pursued beyond the lies spread through a TV screen or through our deepest desires born out of insecurity and loneliness. If not, Inaba and perhaps the world, would drown in eternal fog and humans would become shadows, their memories erased forever and their ignorance a call for eternal bliss. 

Our cast of characters goes through the same process, at first avoiding the truth about their deepest feelings, their insecurities and hidden desires, to then facing their true selves, with both good and bad, and receiving their Personas into their hearts. At the end of each of their dungeons they have some sort of deep realisation of their true nature and it was Naoto’s dungeon I was about to start when I finished my previous text about Persona 4. I already suspected that Naoto didn’t identify as a woman, but androgyny in videogames is real so I didn’t give it much thought. It was when she was facing her other self, the other she was fighting against, that she revealed that she was in fact a woman living as a man, which left her friends in disbelief. 

I already mentioned how Persona 4 treats themes like sexual orientation in a previous post, but this thing with Naoto was strange. She wanted to be a detective when she was very young, but the profession was exclusively male, and then there was her young age which didn’t help getting the recognition for the reasoning  skills that she so well deserved. When she was a child, being a girl detective was a cute curiosity, but when she grew up, the idea of a young woman being a detective must have brought some sexist drama she didn’t want to deal with, so she passed as a young man and focused on the investigation of the Inaba murders without worrying about how others perceived her gender and sex. Oh, the dream! How much I wished to have been born a man when I was younger (when I was younger, being born a man was the same as being born male). I would be so free, I would be an entirely different person, much more sociable for sure. I don’t know if I would be less afraid of absolutely everything, but I would definitely feel more comfortable around other men, so I understand Naoto very well. 

The strange part came a bit after, when her other self said “how could you become an ideal man when you were never male to begin with?” and then after Naoto faced herself she said “but though I will one day change from a child to an adult, I will never change from a woman to a man…” and right after “what I should yearn for… No, what I must strive for isn’t to become a man. It’s to accept myself for what I really am.” Naoto’s experience was very much like my own but the ideas didn’t frame the possibility of actually becoming a man if she so wanted, because that would touch the very issues Atlus has been struggling with. I don’t mean it in a negative way; it was very mild considering what I’ve seen before. I enjoyed the scene with Naoto and the way everyone reacted was very endearing. Kanji was the first one to accept her. Since then all interactions between them were very sweet.

After that I got my romantic scene with Chie and I have to confess that Marie was also my girlfriend. I checked a guide and both relationships didn’t collide during Valentine’s Day. I then went for the romance option with both but while I pursued the relationship with Marie for the extra content, I romanced Chie because she is my favourite character. I loved the interactions between her and Yosuke during Culture Festival Day and the crossdressing event. From there on, I used the creepy highschool girl outfit in every dungeon. Yosuke got used to his new mini skirt and his persona was amazing during the last dungeon because many shadows were weak to wind. 

After Namatame was arrested I thought the game was reaching its conclusion. When he was at the Riverside a few months ago moaning nonsense to himself it was clear that he was in great suffering. After Nanako’s kidnapping, allegedly to save her, we managed to clear the dungeon and defeat his shadow. He was under surveillance at the hospital and Nanako was very sick. She died from her mysterious health situation. The doctors couldn’t figure out what she had gotten. It was as if the contact with the TV world had infected her with the same evil as the first victims. I felt that I was approaching the end of the game so I checked a guide to see what the path to the true ending was. The true ending isn’t something you accidentally fall into. Very specific and non-intuitive dialogue choices are required to progress and get to the real culprit. If I could or couldn’t have guessed who the real culprit was without any help will forever remain a mystery. At first it even seemed a bit ridiculous and I’m almost sure he wouldn’t be my first choice.

A solid gasp

After I finished the game, I reloaded the save to see the bad ending. It was the most anti-climatic thing I’ve ever seen. Nanako remained dead, so imagine how it feels to fall into that ending right after watching her die in the hospital without the knowledge that she could come back to life. When I made my progress I was still very shocked by her death and didn’t have any idea that she could come back. Since her health situation was a question mark, the powers at hand and the connection between our group may have reawakened her spark. In practical terms, we had to avoid revenge and pick the right dialogue choices. The rest of the bad ending didn’t feel like the type of ending we are used to in japanese videogames – those endings that drag, and drag, and drag – with an epilogue and many sentimental words, and bright colours, tears and laughing and banter. That was the true ending with the golden content from Marie. Also, Kanji’s new hairstyle. 

But the bad ending didn’t lift the fog of illusion that Ameno-Sagiri mentioned during our fight. We said goodbye to our friends and left them enveloped in the fog that would eventually consume them, and with it the loss of memory, blissful ignorance and disconnect. After the point where we got the culprit and confronted him in the dungeon the game got very scripted, with no more room for further social link activity. I managed to max out every classmates’ social link except for Rise, unfortunately. I spent too much time at the start without knowing what to do and spent precious time with activities that weren’t necessary. I wonder if we can max out all social links in one playthrough. Apart from my classmates I managed to max the nurse Sayoko, Hisano which I loved, Marie for the ending, my group except for Rise and the Fox, the links that unlock with the story and not much else.

During the adorable ski trip some mysterious forces attracted our group into a shelter were we were summoned by a special character to fight inside another dungeon – the Hollow Forest – with the objective to save Marie. This dungeon was a bit hellish. We were stripped away from every single item we got and every time we started a fight our SP was halved. During the exploration we got access to treasure chests that allowed us to populate our inventory with useful items like the rings. These were useful to replenish a number of SP for every turn in battle. Besides the SP, some enemies were also a pain to deal with. We could avoid some shadows if they showed up on the map, but in certain levels we had to engage in battles whether we wanted it or not because opening a door automatically initiated a fight. Furthermore, the enemies used plenty of status effects against us with almost perfect success rate. Because of the constant ailments, exploring the dungeons was paramount to get armour to protect the party against the damage type they were weak to and also items to break enemy resistances. By the end of the dungeon we were well equipped to defeat whatever was holding its grasp on Marie. 

The existence of the Hollow Forest was related to the memory loss Marie had been struggling with since the start of the game. When she got her memories back she opted to hide herself inside the forest, shocked with the realisation of her nature as the emissary carrying the collective wishes of humanity to the Sagiri. With the fog raging inside her, and after some pressure from the group, she fell asleep, calming her mind, and setting free the fog to form Kusumi-no-Okami, an entity which was a part of Marie and one of the many aspects of her existence.

After defeating Kusumi-no-Okami and giving Marie her well deserved freedom from the boundless wishes that almost destroyed her, our group was set on discovering the real truth behind it all. After some very striking revelations we stood before Izanami, the one god that created the Sagiri and separated itself from Marie, giving her the comb that she treasured as the only connection to her existence and which was in fact a curse and a symbol of separation. The granting of those wishes further entangled the web of lies where people wanted to live, even convincing a god that illusions and expectations formed into fabricated realities were everything that humans could wish for. The images shown on the TV were the result of those expectations, and by activating the object of desire the god granted the perfect picture. Although when expectation met the desired outcome, something else changed inside the hearts of people and the very realisation of mankind’s shortcomings came to light opening gaps for more wishes and avenues for more fog. Think about it as using social networks to access only the type of content you agree with, feeding the algorithm with your conscious and unconscious will with slight variations of the same thing, forming the content inside a primordial sea of misconstrued information, deleting your perspective and ultimately your critical thinking and reasoning with time.

Izanami

Even the gods don’t believe in us, was what I thought when Izanami said “you have already exceeded what I thought humanity to be capable of.” Just because we were going for the truth as the ultimate wish worth fighting for, having to convince and even force a god to change their opinion was a bit absurd but at the same time it was interesting from a theological perspective. At least I felt that we had some agency in the books. And then when Izanami-no-Okami said “well done…!” a tear started rolling down my face.

Oh my, what a game! I’m tired and depleted as I think I’ll always be after playing a Persona game. It is, however, a good kind of exhaustion, of having played a long game with a rich and meaningful story that agitates the soul. After lifting the fog from both this world and the TV world, it was time to go home. We said goodbye to our dear friends and took the train. Some time later we visited a bright Inaba full of life, warmth and hope. Everyone changed and grew up a bit, especially our dear Kanji! As for Marie and the others you’ll have to see for yourself.

Goodbye :’)

If you’re still here, thanks for reading this! I enjoyed my time with Persona 4 Golden even though it wasn’t entirely possible to play it without interruptions. I plan to check the extra content from the Golden edition and see the anime cutscenes again. I enjoyed the concept drawings for the characters and their personas, the cover artworks, and the Jungian psychology lessons from Mr. Edogawa. I still have a lot to explore in the game and social links to complete, so I hope to be able to do another run sometime soon.

Into the TV

It’s been a minute! I was on vacation and travelled to visit family. I had the best intentions to keep up with my gaming streak but very quickly noticed that I wouldn’t do anything else if I played video games like I normally do. I enjoyed the change of pace and being with family I haven’t seen in a while. We took walks in historical places, went to museums and churches, ate good food and talked about everything we could think of. We also got our share of family drama, but all things considered, I enjoyed my time very, very much. 

Between reading, doing crochet, and playing with gorgeous family cats, I found some moments where I could play a little bit of Persona 4 Golden. I’m still reading The House in Fata Morgana, but I think my enthusiasm ended at the end of the main game. A Requiem for Innocence had some interesting, even exciting story arcs, but Resurrection is a slog and so unnecessary. When I’m reading it I feel like I should be doing something else, however I can’t put down something that I’ve already started. It’s just that I don’t really need to know the backstories of everyone involved in the main game when the information is already available there. I don’t need to know their futures either because it deletes the uncertainty that made the ending of the main game so meaningful.

On another note, it isn’t surprising that I’m enjoying Persona 4 Golden as much as I am. It’s the Atlus effect! Their games are good and appeal to me with no effort. I don’t care if it’s high schoolers again fighting against some sinister power because the characters, their portraits, the art, the story, the gameplay, are just pure top tier goodness. I think the story and atmosphere in Persona 3 Reload is more up my alley though. The green fog, the corrupted minds, the certainty of the end of days, the messiah that will save us all – it’s in fact a very familiar story in the sense that it conveys a positive message of love, sacrifice and, ultimately, physical and spiritual endurance. That group of friends goes through everything imaginable to save what they believe in, their connections, the love between each other, and the world at large.

One of my favourite scenes so far in Persona 4 Golden

Persona 4 Golden is a bit more chill in the story aspect, at least so far. I don’t believe there isn’t any higher power at work, good or bad. Is there in fact any Persona game that doesn’t make us question our beliefs and drives us through hell to make us see the significance of everything around us? It’s the little things, man. The story is more like a thriller – a set of mysterious murders and disappearances in the city of Inaba connected to antennas and the TV. Bodies are found dangling from antennas, people disappear from the world and end up inside a TV program that broadcasts on rainy nights. We soon discover that we can literally enter the TV and save people there before it’s too late.

The main story is focused on the investigation aspect. The Velvet room’s existence feels even more mysterious with the presence of Maria and her dry sense of humour. I haven’t explored Margaret’s social link yet to see if there’s more than a list of boring persona fusions I won’t ever use. Then there’s loads of other social links, all significantly impacting the power of our fused personas. The core group we play with is positively affected in battle the higher our social link is. I’ve been focusing mostly on the party we play with and the characters we can interact with at night. 

Persona 4 Golden is the best version of the game there is, but it isn’t a remake like Reload with all the quality of life features these remakes have been spoiling us with. I think the game is perfectly fine, but I can’t say I feel like I’m being as efficient in my time management as I was in Reload. Most of the time I have no idea about what I can do on certain days. I often feel like I’m wasting time in activities like fishing. Fishing makes time pass as well as maintaining the garden, but catching bugs doesn’t. It’s confusing. This is where the voice feature comes in. It’s a feature that lets us see what other players did during the day we’re in. I use it to get some clues about which people are available that day to hang out, and it’s also useful to see what activities got the bigger number of participants. For a first playthrough, it beats having a guide with me at all times.

Eating watermelon

After about 30 hours of gameplay, I still don’t have a clue about what’s going on and most likely I’m not supposed to. I believe I stopped playing at the time when I got all the clues about Naoto and I’m ready to step into his dungeon. I haven’t been in the mood for dungeon crawling these days, so I took a little break from the game. Persona games slowly build up and I kind of enjoy the pace. Since this time I’m playing the game in shorter sessions I’m not following the story so thoroughly. 

I’ve mentioned on Mastodon how uncomfortable I feel with Yosuke’s homophobia. I don’t want to dwell on it because most people know it’s wrong and unacceptable. I think, however, that situations like the tent scene are all too common among younger and even older people, and still should be represented in video games. I’m not for censuring older games because of their unfortunate takes, but I’d like to have had some agency as a player to tell Yosuke that his masculinity is not at risk by sharing the same tent with a colleague because he’s gay or bisexual.

I know that all this can be seen as good fun and extremely natural interactions between young boys. Besides, I’m far from the intended audience for this game, but since I’m playing it, allow me to express some disbelief and disappointment. I enjoyed Yosuke’s character from the start. He’s the less stupid sidekick I had the pleasure to know and yet later he presents himself as the main sexist and homophobic from the group. I don’t know why I’m so shocked since almost every boy in my class in the 90s was Yosuke. I don’t know how things are between people from that age group today but I guess we’ve come a long way since then. 

On another note, the game is beautiful to look at and it shines with the little stories for every social link. Chie and Marie are two of my favourite characters and I find Hisano and the nurse very intriguing and a bit creepy. The other social links that I’m more engaged with are Dojima and Nanako, who’s struggling with immense solitude. I’m still expecting some weird twists in the main story but I haven’t run into any major events yet. Everything happening in the margins has been so satisfying that I don’t feel any need to rush things. 

Overall my experience with the game has been very positive and my level of enjoyment is on par with Persona 3 Reload. Both experiences are very distinct from each other, even when sharing the same Megami Tensei universe. I’m really enjoying these games, what sets them apart and what connects them in a broader sense. It’s not a dull franchise where everything looks the same and feels the same, just with better coat of paint. As soon as I get back into my routine I’ll spend some afternoons with this great cast of characters.

The House in Fata Morgana

The House in Fata Morgana (THiFM) is a visual novel written by Keika Hanada and developed by Novect. According to wikipedia, it was released in 2012 and 2014 in Japan for PC and iOS and then in 2016 by MangaGamer for PC. Later down the line a Nintendo 3DS and a Playstation Vita version were released by Dramatic Create and the more recent versions for Playstation 4, Vita and Nintendo Switch were released by Limited Run. These versions are complete with the two DLC and short stories. It’s called The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition and it’s the one I’m currently playing.

THiFM is very linear compared to my experience with other visual novels like The Letter. By interacting with objects and exploring the mansion when given the opportunity to do so we can pretty much unlock all endings if we save our game at every choice prompt. What’s cool about the Dreams of the Revenants edition is that it unlocks the stories in order, which means you need to get the true ending before you can access the DLC stories. Everything else is marked in grey and you can’t select it before you complete the main story, and the same goes for the DLCs. “A Requiem for Innocence” is the first tale available after playing the main story and it unlocks progressively. It’s a prequel. Then there’s “Reincarnation”, which isn’t available on PC, and as far as I know it’s an epilogue. Additionally we have yet to unlock the short stories and the extras. There’s a lot of content in the PS4, Vita, and Nintendo Switch package.

In this edition there’s also a Back Door. Take it as some sort of funny hack. By answering three questions we can unlock every story in the game. I didn’t use the option, but it’s very useful to those who already know the story and want to play the additional content in whichever order they wish. I’m currently reading “A Requiem for Innocence” and enjoying the little bits of plot that were left to the imagination when I went through the main game. In such intricate stories I tend to prefer staying in the dark about a lot of details and interpret them using the information originally given to me. I think it’s more exciting knowing less and keep wondering about intriguing details or what could have happened during certain events previously left unseen but that were central to the tragedy that followed.

** There’s spoilers for some parts of the story **

THiFM tells the story of a person with amnesia (where did I hear this before?) who ends up at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. They wake up inside the mansion and a beautiful maid – the Maid – calls them Master. We, as the Master, can’t figure things out on our own. The Maid seems to be very motherly and sweet and she’s the first person we see after waking up in a rocking chair. She seems very happy to have found another Master and it looks like for all intents and purposes we are there to stay. However there’s a lot of confusion about how we got there in the first place. The Maid warmly offers a helping hand. After all, she most likely knows more about us than we do ourselves and she’s ready to offer some guidance through the mansion’s halls and rooms enveloped in darkness. Yet, what she’s offering is not a simple guided tour of the mansion; it’s in fact a deep dive into the mansion’s history and the stories of its previous Masters. In order to do that, the Maid asks us to hold her hand and never let go. Then, we open the first door.

I’m not going to retell the whole story here. I’d like to, but it’s so unnecessary and I wouldn’t count on my memory for that! I think it could be funny to create a shorter version of the story for kids without the bloody parts and the everlasting trauma, as a tale of romance, acceptance, love and sacrifice. It’s a beautiful tale that spans hundreds of years. The first three doors we visit with the Maid are the tales of three different people whose tales ended in tragedy. The mansion is cursed by a cursed witch. I don’t know about you, but I think that a cursed witch is more dangerous than a witch, right? A witch can be good or bad, even though in the story and the period it represents, being a witch is always bad. So a cursed witch is extra terrible and comes with extra misery for everyone touched by her.

I need to confess something. I loved the story from the start. The first three doors with the contained stories of its characters were great. The first door tells the story of a brother and sister, the second door tells the story of a beast and its lover, the third door is about a man blinded by power and status and his best friend. There’s a common denominator to all these stories. A white-haired girl appears in all of them. She’s a pure, wonderful, sweet, shy girl, but she has an effect on the hearts of men and women that ultimately contributes to their demise. Who’s the White-Haired Girl is one of the central mysteries of the story. How come someone so pure and without any ill intent has such capacity to change lives for the worse?

About what I had to confess. I spaced out a lot while I was reading. It wasn’t because I got bored with the story; it was because I was trying to tie the knots and to figure things out on my own, something I’m still currently doing. What’s beyond the 4th door and all the doors that came after is a bit of a blur. I wasn’t exactly counting, and when the storylines started making more sense in context, I stopped paying that much attention to the door I was at. From a certain point on it doesn’t matter that much, unless we want to make a tier list of your favourite doors and I have none. I loved all of them equally. One door has a false story, but we eventually get the right one, so it wasn’t that important.

Since this was a story of pain, trauma, suffering and, possibly, redemption, it was important for our main character to figure out who they were, who was the White-Haired Girl, who was the Maid and who was the witch. The stories of these characters are central to the plot and are related to the stories of the other characters behind the first three doors. Behind the other doors we have access to the real stories of the witch, the Maid, Michel, Michel and Giselle, more witch and then going back in time to the first story of the mansion and how the terrible curse happened in the first place. The motivation behind all this is the salvation of the soul from the corruption of the witch’s curse, by creating an opportunity for everyone to tell their stories and find redemption. Also, another very strong motivator was the love between Michel and Giselle and how much they were invested in rejoining after death to fix what they couldn’t achieve in life.

The game explores the lengths of human evil. There were some times in the course of the story that I had to take a little break to collect myself. It must have happened three or four times, because the level of torment and torture in some parts was way overwhelming. Rape, domestic violence and transphobia are a central part of some character’s stories. Also, if you happen to be a saint, never tell anyone. Do you know what people do to saints if they spill the beans? The Son of God was the first to go. 

Michel’s story was – among many others – very hard to watch. He was born with a girl’s body but never identified as one. If you have ever been in this situation – as a trans person or someone who doesn’t fit gender roles – during your formative years this story will sound equally familiar and painful. He had to deal with a family that wasn’t accepting of his identity and then he was locked up and fell victim to a noble girl’s bullying that lasted until she got bored and moved on. It was awful to see what she did to him. To make matters worse he had fallen in love with her. At first he had a female body but, after getting sick, he woke up with a male body and everyone thought he was cursed. His body wasn’t complete, he wasn’t a finished man, and that fact contributed to even more bullying and hate. It’s not hard to guess what happened to him afterwards: he was sent to the mansion. It didn’t happen only to him; some people were sent there either after a terrible experience or, if they already happened to live there, misfortune between those walls would eventually find them. 

The thing with Michel is that he is a very intriguing character and to me he’s still an enigma. In hindsight I know that he had some physical traits that served as inspiration to someone else in the story, but what the hell happened to him to make him transition only by the grace of God or was it something else more sinister? I can’t wrap my head around it. Maybe I spaced out on that part. My idea is that his suffering resonated with the witch and the only way to call him to the mansion was to make him an abomination (their words, not mine). 

It was very pleasing to watch his transformation and his reaction to his changing body, the hope he got when he finally could live as himself. Also we can interpret his existence as some sort of a prophet or an angel, someone who was called to fulfill a role he didn’t exactly ask for – one among many – but with the right motivation and for the salvation of everyone’s soul he fought until the end. Everything is dramatic in the game and the same goes for his relationship with Giselle and his quest to find her soul and be reunited with her at last.

By this point it’s very obvious that I’m just rambling. There’s a handful of souls that were called to the mansion because of the witch’s curse. Why the witch cursed those people is revealed during the real story of her suffering at their hands. It was absolutely awful and degrading. Some souls were mere connections and others were the perpetrators. It’s clear that her wrath inflicted pain to more than the perpetrators, extending itself to their acquaintances and relationships, and employing different means. After some centuries, cursing people is only fun if you have someone to share it with. 

On the matter of sharing, something really unexpected happened when I was reading a part of the story between Michel and Giselle but it could also have been a little before that. As I mentioned, I space out or lose my focus sometimes, so using the log is absolutely necessary. When I opened the log – surprise! – I found parts of the dialogue that weren’t on screen. It was the witch’s doing and possibly related with the unique nature of the chapter.

Contrary to other visual novels, in THiFM we know when we’re on the right path for the true ending. The other endings happen quite suddenly and don’t have branching paths so it makes it easier to reload a save and choose the other options. I played the game with the music volume turned to a minimum, because I couldn’t read and hear some loops at the same time especially when the music was more lively. The game’s soundtrack is beautiful but I prefer to appreciate it as a standalone thing. 

I think it was a very well written story and I warmly recommend it to anyone interested in gothic horror visual novels with gripping stories and mature themes. The prequel I’m currently reading – A Requiem for Innocence – has a bit more of that goofiness we’re used to, but fortunately THiFM takes itself seriously from start to finish therefore making the story and everyone involved more believable and relatable. 

Games I’m playing in April

My video game sessions have been all over the place lately. This text will be less about overarching themes and more down to earth, including what I’ve been playing in the last weeks or so.

Cyberpunk

** Spoilers only for Cyberpunk **

I have been exploring all main endings in Cyberpunk. By main ending I mean the main choices we have to pick to reach Mikoshi inside Arasaka Tower. I’ve been choosing to always go back to my body. I did two missions so far and unlocked the Aldecaldos ending, which was very good and promising for V. It was the ending where I got to maintain Judy as my romance option without having weird things happening. I romanced her more for the story development than for the vibe I got from her. It’s not a character I’m very attracted to. I think Panam’s friendship is much more valuable in the game than any romance. In hindsight, I could have gone without romancing anyone in the game.

After unlocking the ending and watching the last scenes as well as the credit scenes I got the feeling that there was hope for V and that Panam wouldn’t easily give up on V and would try to save her by any means necessary. That’s the value of a good friend. From Judy, I got the same feeling as I always did. She wanted to run away to “find herself” and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, getting away from Night City, and she took the ride. Me being there or not was just a detail. That’s the Aldecaldos ending, not Judy’s, which makes me think romancing/befriending Panam is some sort of a canon.

After that ending I unlocked the Rogue/Silverhand ending. I enjoyed it and it was a bit easier to reach Mikoshi than with the Aldecaldos. Once again I defeated Smasher in a fight I wasn’t ready for because I’m playing a type of blade/shotgun glass cannon, and once again returned to my body. The ending was very anticlimactic because I was beyond help. I didn’t have a family to support me even though I was the queen of The Afterlife. More people surrounded me and applauded my feats but less people did actually show the drive to help with my short lifespan. Of course, Judy was the first to jump ship on her quest to find her place in the world. Why waste any time in the company of a terminally ill person, right? Judy isn’t the kind of person you’d want at your side if you’d find yourself in a similar situation, but the odds of finding someone like her in real life aren’t slim. After a nice mission in space and an ending clearly open to interpretation, the credits roll and we find our closest acquaintances wanting to know how V is doing.

My last ending will be accepting Hanako’s deal, but I don’t remember much of what the deal was. I decided to level up a bit more and do some jobs and gigs before trying the last mission. I finished all of Regina’s requests and visited some more places in Night City while taking NCPD side jobs. Once again I plan to return to V’s body if the ending allows it. From what I’ve seen there’s variations to the endings if we choose to give V’s body to Johnny but there’s only so many times I can kill Smasher without getting bored.

Valkyrie Elysium

One weekend, I was exploring my collection of Playstation games and noticed I still had Valkyrie Elysium installed. I checked it and my save was from almost a year ago. I decided to give it another try. I wasn’t that far from the end-game, but still had a good portion of side-quests to complete. I may have abandoned the game because the colour palette was very pastel and not in the most pleasing way, the colours and volumes had very similar tonalities, the landscapes looked a bit flat, and my eyes got tired from the scenery. However, the combat is good and fun and it’s where the game really shines both for new and experienced players. After re-learning how to use magic, combos and my einherjer, I adapted myself to a number of combat situations, used elemental advantages and finished regular enemies and bosses alike.

I went through all side quests and unlocked some progress and combat trophies in the process. Since I was having fun, I tried to complete everything before the last chapter, but I didn’t collect absolutely everything, only prioritising the side quests and the flowers. When I was ready to enter the last chapter I was meant to choose a path. I used a guide and saw that my progress would naturally land on the true ending. I wanted the trophy for all four endings, so I took the easiest one out of the way. Then, reloaded the save and went for the true and arguably the most difficult ending while I still had the energy. It was difficult and during the fight with the last boss my Playstation crashed. Fortunately it wasn’t on the second phase and thank the gods (and the devs) for checkpoints. Using my rage as fuel, I finished everything and watched the ending that tied everything up.

On the next day, I unlocked the normal ending, which is the one we get if we play the main story from start to finish without detours. It wasn’t what I was expecting if I was expecting anything at all. It felt just like an ending. After that, at last, the alternative ending to the normal one was an endurance trial of many bosses and my hands weren’t collaborating at all. I died once but in the end I won the fight and unlocked an ending that, even though it wasn’t on the same positive tone as the true ending, still felt very satisfying.

I enjoyed some of the other game modes but didn’t stick around. I wasn’t interested in getting the platinum because I had to play the game all over again on hard, grind a lot for the SSS weapons, have S-rank in everything and I wasn’t really feeling it. Moving on, I continued playing Cyberpunk and installed Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. The latter has a very interesting story from the get-go; there’s absolutely no doubt it’s a game I’m going to enjoy. However, it’s a traditional jrpg, and since there’s a learning curve I decided to wait for a time when I had the good energy to dedicate.

The House in Fata Morgana

Then, I got sick. It wasn’t anything serious but I just couldn’t be playing in my living room and had to lie down. It’s where the Nintendo Switch came into play, pun intended. I didn’t want to play anything in particular, just a little help to fall asleep. Some games just find their way into our hearts and more often than not those games are visual novels.

The House in Fata Morgana (THiFM) was sitting in my downloaded games for ages now. I don’t have a physical edition because importing Limited Run games to where I live is a fortune in shipping and taxes, not to mention the rarity tax. I found a nice sale and bought the game for a price I felt was very fair and within my budget. Also, the most complete version of the game is on the Switch, Vita, and Playstation 4, if I’m not mistaken. 

The game was exactly what I needed. It started slow; it’s not heavily choice-based, apart from the last half and endings, and it’s as dark as only some visual novels can be. It tells a gothic story with the romanticised flair of mediaeval times, cursed witches, haunted mansions, ruined families, tragic relationships, mysterious characters and many, many secrets. There’s no over-the-top anime banter, even when reading lighter conversations. After all, we really need those moments of respite in order to survive the story, trust me. I’m playing it first without a guide, but I think that if I’m not right at the true ending I may be very close.

Nobles, commoners, human nature, superstitions, fear, poverty, abuse, power, faith, sexuality, love – everything constitutes the mould from which THiFM came into existence, bringing life to a story full of horrors and despair spanning different generations. Maybe I’ll write a bit about the story, but I think it’s such a great game to play/read without reading anything about it first. It’s what I’m doing – just enjoying the surprises I find and the shocking revelations from the witch.

Seiros’ apology

** Massive spoilers for Fire Emblem Three Houses, religious themes and internalised misogyny **

It’s strange when you keep getting an annoying pull to write about a specific subject and yet there’s always something hindering that wish. I don’t want to make this personal space overly heavy with walls of text because I tend to go back to older posts to recall some games and I like it to be accessible to me and to the 5 or 6 of you who read my texts for which I’m very grateful. One of the reasons I write about video games is to remember the games I’ve been playing without jumbling everything in my head like, for example, mixing character names, storylines, or having a faint memory of a game like I do with, say, Dungeon Siege II. I played it for many hours but I don’t remember anything about the story. Or Morrowind. I remember it was the darker Elder Scrolls game I’ve played. I remember emotions, not facts, feelings, not scenes.

My memory is a problem because it deceives me constantly. For example, I love Rhea from Fire Emblem Three Houses, and yet she murdered people, experimented on children (to put it mildly) is a self-proclaimed Saint and a cult leader. The negative things always come to memory. No real live Saint worthy of their station calls themselves a Saint. They couldn’t, in practice, because canonization is a posthumous act and it takes years, if not decades, to recognize. And yet, if you want to respect the canon you have to give credit to the Catholic Church, something I have a problem with, but I don’t judge those who do not. I asked myself why I would be so drawn towards a villain, but if you asked my mother she’d easily recall the times when everything I liked in movies, anime or other media, were villains.

Rhea singing the Song of the Nabateans after the ball

In the case of Rhea what attracted me the most was her power, beauty, sadness and drive. The fact that she’s a woman may have played a role. Then again, she’s fragile, old and afraid. She’s so afraid of Nemesis that her whole convo with Claude at the end of Verdant Green was extremely uncomfortable to get into. I wasn’t expecting so much hesitation and fear coming out of an antagonist, especially one that has been making the life of our main character so confusing. And yet, those who went the extra mile and married her, will be able to read one of the best apologies and love declarations Fire Emblem has ever seen. I think that my timing was perfect after four playthroughs of too much to bear. A character that develops differently across different storylines can easily fall into oblivion because it’s not expected that people invest so much time into a game replaying it constantly and I don’t remember any game with such a rich story hidden from plain sight, intentionally or not.

Sothis

Right at the start it’s clear that our villain is having many problems dealing with grief after the loss of her mother which has arisen to a goddess status. Sothis is the goddess of Fódlan and protector of the land and all its living things. She’s in fact an overpowered alien force. Many of her children were able to transform into powerful dragons, but the few that are left have lost that power, and the only one who can still summon that power is Rhea. If you consider a dragon to be akin to a god I won’t blame you. 

“Just being a woman is enough to make my wings droop, let alone the fact that I’m such a wicked one.” — Teresa of Ávila 

It’s clear that the representation of religion in video games, especially the Catholic denomination, is done in a very negative light. It’s better than the alternative, because we shouldn’t be creating works of art to convert people to what many perceive as lies and spiritual misery. A dragon Archbishop that dominates the land is a safe option for everyone. You see, faith is not the problem; you can believe in anything you want if it makes you happy – you get kudos if it’s dragons. It’s what you do with it and in its name that’s the problem. People are the problem. So, if you have any form of faith that helps you get through life and its many challenges, try to stay away from people of the same faith and don’t proselytise. Be aware of any form of organised religion and don’t listen to what other people say, especially if they came out of nowhere and aren’t a part of your safe space. Don’t let them in, ever. In case those zealots are already inside your safe space – run. There – now you’re safe to play Fire Emblem Three Houses. 

Yes, the Church of Seiros is very loosely based on the Catholic Church and Archbishop Rhea is very loosely based on the authority of the Pope. Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes mentioned her stance towards other forms of faith in a positive light in bits and pieces of dialogue, but that’s not important for now. Rhea’s rage at the start of the game is nothing but pure revenge against her mother’s murderer. It’s a crime of passion but not only that. She’s both a victim and a warrior. If you see the battle scene where she confronts Nemesis, the fear in her eyes is palpable. After she wins the fight, she’s an emotional wreck.

Payback

Mental illness, trauma, grief and suffering gave birth to the Church of Seiros. Since she’s a part of another species – the Nabateans – which are on the verge of extinction, there’s a sense of urgency in survival and what else works best than to dominate through faith and a system of nobility with its inception in the goddess herself? The mythology of Three Houses is complex but it’s very well explained in the Fire Emblem wiki. Those bits and pieces can elude us while we’re actually worried about the best class builds and the wiki did a good job in putting together the mythology in their Three Houses Online Bible, totally free and without pop-ups of priests asking for donations. 

The system of nobility is closely connected with the power of crests which are solely gotten by birth – and not always guaranteed – originated from the goddess and imbued with the power of dragons, corrupted by Nemesis – the glutton – at a later stage and retaining a special synergy with a matching relic weapon, giving absolute power over all non-crest-bearers and implementing a hierarchy of power and abuse. Because everyone abuses at a certain point, even Seiros. Of course none of this shitshow should be allowed to continue and someone would eventually start a revolution for the power of meritocracy, because that fallacy is still in good health in current days. The power of humans over the alien dragon, to extinguish anything that could pose a threat to what humans can do “for justice,” not before having had a taste of that very same source by stealing, pilling, destroying and abusing, like humans do so well, and fighting for that objective using the power of another set of beings – the Agarthans – by destroying, pilling and abusing until there’s a big nothing left and people can return to their lives and abusing each other in other ways. The endless cycle. 

“Do you think […] that it is an easy matter to have to do business with the world, to live in the world, and, as I have said, to live as worldly men do, and yet inwardly to be strangers to the world, and enemies of the world, like persons who are in exile – to be, in short, not men but angels?” — Teresa of Ávila 

“Or priests with a sword,” like my wife says, with a snarly tone. I prefer to use the metaphor of an army of angels and not all of them good angels, however, all of them exalting unspeakable force.

We talk a lot about religion, me and her. Not all the time, but every time we do it, we go on and on for hours. The best chats we can possibly have about religion are either with fervorous atheists like my wife or someone from another faith altogether. It helps with perspective and it exercises tolerance and curiosity. Our last one was about the origins of monotheistic religions, about Judaism – which I still know so little about – and how monotheistic religions are systems that firmly establish patriarchal values, etc. I think this is why the gender of the powerful representative of the Church of Seiros feels so out of place and absurd that’s actually exciting. However, in the eyes of the Catholic church, a woman is naturally wicked, like Teresa, in all her self-deprecating glory, earned the title of Saint, something she wouldn’t have agreed on in life. A woman that was at the mercy of “learned men” for her entire life but who was smart enough at choosing her allies.

[Such endearing words] are very effeminate; and I should not like you to be that, or even appear to be that, in any way, my daughters; I want you to be strong men. If you do all that is in you, the Lord will make you so manly that men themselves will be amazed at you. – Teresa of Ávila

I want you to transform into a dragon, like the Immaculate One.

The Knights of Seiros were the army of the Church of Seiros but none of them was especially notorious, except Jeralt which was cured with Rhea’s blood, and also Catherine whom had for Rhea a dedication and love that transcended every belief system, solely focused on the person instead of her station. I decided to pair Catherine with another lover, therefore preventing her from having the heartbreak of the century. I paired her with Shamir, a down-to-earth atheist mercenary from the Knights of Seiros whom, at the time, felt indebted to Rhea. The Archbishop herself didn’t mind the lack of devotion. It’s what happens when you need all the help you can get.

This is where my mind can go on a Saturday morning without enough cups of espresso. So, in the end, if we decide to tame the beast and defeat the antagonist, we’re able to save a woman from 1000 years of grief and solitude. In a Japanese game fashion, the power of love and dedication is enough to heal any deep wound and to redeem any misdeeds, even if they include illegal experiments to give new life to a dead goddess. The transformed body parts are akin to the relics of saints. The goddess herself – Sothis – is none the wiser, and the consequence of having to deal with a silent protagonist is a terrible lack of communication that would have breathed new life into the story had it existed in the first place.

Rhea never knew that Byleth actually saw Sothis or what conversations they were having – one-sided conversations at that – and she was clueless as to why Sothis gave her power away and annihilated herself in the process, fusing with Byleth, therefore putting her power in the hands of a human which was created to serve as a vessel – a human reliquary. What I mean is nothing was going to work as intended by Seiros in the first place. The experiment she made to bring her mother back was a sad attempt at shoving the problem under the rug, the problem being the grief and trauma of having her brothers, sisters and mother killed at the hands of humans, their bodies used to build weapons to spread more misery. A trauma that lasted for centuries and left a semblance of peace where in truth a lot of families of crest-bearers were suffering in silence, never fully aware of the origins of their predicament or the secrets of the long forgotten races of beings that once governed the land. 

In any case, Saint Seiros, the self-proclaimed Saint, which is in fact Rhea, traveled across the land to find the other children of the goddess or their descendants. She found two more family members, Cethleann and Chicol from those who were alive and still in possession of their faculties. However, as I mentioned earlier, they were more akin to humans than Nabateans because they lost their powers and their dragon forms even though they were still in possession of their crests which were very powerful. 

So Rhea along the storyline had some funny mood swings. She could be motherly and affectionate and then snap into a murderous rage. It has been the source of memes across the internet. Founding a church because of the annihilation of a people and meddling into worldly affairs from a seat of power is something very historically significant and very interesting to experience in a video game. My love for this character is much more than just the religious aspect, which interests me from an intellectual, historical and maybe spiritual perspective, but also because no other character made me write so much and think so much about these matters and about a story that’s clearly half-written and yet so gripping and relatable.

Well, in the end, I chose to marry her, and I don’t regret having a dragon anime partner. If there was a choice at the end of the game to “leave Fódlan to humans and flee on the back of your dragon,” I’d take it without further thought. Fire Emblem Three Houses is my absolute favorite game, obviously. I love it so much that every missed opportunity to expand on the lore stings a bit more than it should. I’m becoming very critical of the game every time I think about it, but not in a negative sense. I’m certain that the story will still inspire others to write about it and even expand on the lore.

This text is somewhat unfinished, and I don’t even know if I articulated properly what I wanted to convey, but I’m tired of writing about this. The writers working with Fire Emblem Three Houses did a great job with the story, even though its details are a bit scattered across Fódlan and need to be found with patience and persistence.

Yesterday, I had to crucify a man in Cyberpunk 2077. There’s no rest for wicked women like me.